All Things Must End
by kinnoth
Summary: Sometimes, things just don't work out. Ratings vary from G to PG13. Complete for now. LudwigxNaoji
1. Tea Time Comes Around

Disclaimer: Not mine

**Tea Time Comes Around**

Naoji's fingers quaver beneath the weight of the tray he carries to Ludwig's room. He stiffens his thumb over an elaborate handle to steady it; Ludwig would not appreciate wet saucers. Particularly, perfunctorily, he counts the gaps between doors and walls until he reaches his destination. "Yes?" Ludwig's voice is muffled but Naoji hesitates anyway before stepping inside.

Ludwig smiles through half-lidded eyes and he inhales the fragrance before murmuring, "Your tea always calms me, Naoji," and drinks. Naoji nods, as if glad.

Tea making is a woman's job, back in his country. It is custom for the wife to offer it to her husband, and the act of courtship is little more than cups of tea pressing back and forth between a couple. Ludwig's cup clinks against its dish and he frowns, seeming disturbed. "Is there something troubling you, Naoji?" This is a demand, and Naoji's heart flutters beneath its adamance.

"No," he says, immediately, then, "Yes." Ludwig's brow rises eloquently. Naoji reddens. "I love you," he blurts. And then, feeling as if no more harm can be done, adds, "I've loved you since you first discovered me. Since you first drew me into your world."

Ludwig blinks; his face is now carefully guarded. "Ah," he says, and murmurs, "Is that so."

Naoji nods, and feels the blood burst to life in his cheeks. He bites his lip and does not bring his eyes to meet the gaze that burns upon his face. "Naoji," he hears, and releases his lower lip in favor of the other one. "Naoji…" he hears again; it is soft and delicate, like a lover's hand. He hazards a reckless glance upwards.

Ludwig's eyes are blank. "Naoji, you make my tea."

Naoji swallows. He feels small and foolish. A door closes gently but firmly within him.


	2. Astronomy Lessons

Disclaimer: Not mine.

**Astronomy Lessons**

Naoji never really considered how it would ever come to this; he'd grown accustomed to the heat of Ludwig's devotion, the intensity of his adoration. He was never really given a choice, in the beginning, to love him or not. Ludwig had simply swept him up one day and perhaps it was in his brightness, his fervent adamancy that Naoji _belong to him_ that he had simply let himself be had. Ludwig had become his sun, a phenomenon that he'd expected every morning to rise and retire every evening by his side. He'd never expected this to cease, as he imagines no one ever expects the apocalypse sun, to remain basked in darkness where there should have been light. But, he supposes, he's been a pale moon to Ludwig's sun all this time, not the twin star he'd required of him. And when the light of Ludwig's affections had wavered upon him in an inattentive moment, Ludwig had realized that there had been nothing of love shining back upon him, that the reason Naoji's seemingly quiet affections had been so familiar were because they had been his own, reflected from a polished surface.

No one would have ever expected that it would be the sun to leave his pale moon – and even the moon had never, beneath his light, considered it.

So now Ludwig is someone else's sun, someone else's brilliant day and consuming night. He has found himself another consort, one who's light shines not so bright as his own but shines, nonetheless. And though Naoji cannot say for certain that he has ever truly loved, he simply looks on, biting back his lip instead of his indominance– feeling small and fragile and very cold for seemingly no reason at all.


	3. Here We Break Upon the Shore

Disclaimer: Not mine

**Here We Break Upon the Shore **

His balcony faces the dawn, and he waits for the eastern wind each morning, waiting for his love.

He does not seem the type to pine, so it shocks his family, his companions, when it is discovered several months into Naoji's indefinite departure that he is wasting away. His family and friends send envoys to coax him into submission: Orpherus is a blaring idiosyncrasy, soon disposed of; his mother, equally so. Camus, a joint endeavor, is a little less forthright, and Ludwig is almost convinced by his soft hands and pleading eyes. But in the end even Ludwig's beloved cousin is unable to move him, so the boy announces as he steps at last from his mentor's rooms. "He is waiting for him." Camus shrugs. "He says he's going to wait as long as it takes."

"Remind him of his ambitions," Orpherus urges. "His dreams. Surely they will move him."

Camus only shakes his head. "He doesn't care about politics. Not anymore."

Gradually their entreaties fade, become further and shorter in length and sincerity. His family endows him generously with an Eurusian window and many servants to ensure in vain that he eats.

The doctors are finally called in, sometime into the seventh month. They lift his hair and check his spine and heartbeat. "We're sorry," they say, one after another, even the experts the Lichtenstein import from the old country. "We can find nothing physically wrong with him.

It is only then that someone thinks to write Ludwig's absent lover, to plead his return, if not for the sake of his own education then at least for Ludwig's life. Ludwig smiles for the first time in half a year when this is reported to him.

"If he is to return, it will be from his on convictions; no entreaty of yours will ever sway him." Then quietly from within his pillows, "I've taught him too well for that."

"He's not coming back."

"I know."

So he waits. Eight months. Ten months. A year. And several after. His hair has faded to a soft downy white, what of it is still left on his head. He no longer speaks.

"Please," Eduard, Orpherus, even Caums occasionally, come to beg him. "Please. We need you. The King needs you." Ludwig will only lower his eyes and – in a familiar expression of derision that brings his friends such sweet false hope – say nothing, and they leave again.

So they wait, so he waits. For a memory, for his love whom the world so fatefully tore away from him. For the end of the world. Whichever reaches him first.


	4. Love's Lessons

Disclaimer: Not mine

A/N: And a happy one, for all of ye who have made it this far. Enjoy.

**Love's Lessons **

It is only in the afterglow of their first sexual encounter that he thinks to ask his paramour, "Do you know how to kiss?" His hand on Naoji's neck, curling lazily into the soft hollow beneath his jaw.

Naoji, for all Ludwig knows of him, surprises him with his candidness. "No," he replies. His eyes are demure but his gaze is satisfyingly steady. Ludwig's carefully cloven lips slide apart in a smile.

Naoji's face is prettily flushed, and Ludwig can only restrain his imagination so far when he thinks of all the beastly things he can do to that obedient mouth, all the unspeakable things he can teach it. So he tangles his fingers into the slick hair behind his paramour's ear, and has him bring his hand to cover the intercostal ridges along his abdomen. "I'll teach you." His smile takes a salacious edge. "Part your lips," he commands, and he is none too gentle in his introduction of teeth and tongue to the formerly unspoiled cavern behind his paramour's pliant lips. He responds accordingly to the syllabic humming that interrupts his lesson and pauses, if only to reposition Naoji's hand to where he'd best be pleased.

"Of course I love you, you silly boy, now hush." Their activities resume undisturbed; at least until the necessity for oxygen rears its ugly head.


End file.
